I hope so, and I expect as much. I will probably be able to just keep throwing
inexpensive consumables into it forever. Maybe give it a good blasting with
compressed air every couple of years if it gets dirty inside. These were
made back when quality meant something in the printer business, back before
they changed the business model to "build the printers as cheap as possible,
then rape the consumer on toner/ink".

I was even able to score a JetDirect card on eBay for about $15 a couple
of years ago, so it's directly on the network too. One thing that *is* good
about modern printers compared to older ones is that Ethernet ports are always
included.

Consumer-grade printers now also have wifi. I don't like that at all. Unless
you're planning on having the printer on your lap while you sit on the couch,
run a damn cable to it. :)

Yep, those JetDirect cards are nice, especially the fact that they are modules.

I got an old Canon printer without network connection a couple of years ago. It is rather a "prosumer" thing, lots of connectivity, like USB, cardslots and IR, but no network. My experience with Canon is, that they are not built to last, but this thing is invincible. I attached it to an AP with a 5m usb cable, so it is WIFI enabled now. It even survived the first AP, an old FritzBox (famous german engineering in da house router brand made by AVM) where it ran rather unstable and was only a generic network printer. We needed to power cycle that one once a month. Now it is an Airport Extreme and it needs powercycling only once a year, also it can be recognized as the real thing and computers use the proper Canon driver.

The thing with printers that are built with WIFI is, that they have some protocol for printing from mobile devices. If you have a linux machine, you could install avahi and get the same benefits, I did that and it works like a charm. You need a CUPS (OSX or Airport Extreme use that too) that has this printer added with the proper driver/ppd. Cups needs to offer the driver via avahi as a normal printer. You browse that info and generate a new avahi service file for that. There is also a python script that does it for you. Look here for an example: http://edoceo.com/howto/cups-airprint

My file is a bare minimum approach, it wasn't working previously with too much info copied from the output of cups:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>

<!DOCTYPE service-group SYSTEM "avahi-service.dtd">

<service-group>

<name replace-wildcards="yes">AirPrint iP6700D @ %h</name>

<service>

<type>_ipp._tcp</type>

<subtype>_universal._sub._ipp._tcp</subtype>

<host-name>serverhostname.local</host-name>

<port>631</port>

<txt-record>rp=printers/Canon_iP6700D</txt-record>

<txt-record>note=Canon Pixma iP6700D</txt-record>

<txt-record>pdl=application/pdf,image/urf</txt-record>

<txt-record>URF=none</txt-record>

<txt-record>UUID=8ab3263d-9548-3087-7073-ee2e43627cc8</txt-record>

<txt-record>TLS=1.2</txt-record>

<txt-record>printer-type=0x901c</txt-record>

</service>

</service-group>

PS: It really is annoying that Apple does not just add this by default on the AP!

I bought a brother laser/fax/scan 300 sheet capacity printer about 10 years
ago. It runs wired to my network and is still going amazingly well. I don't
need color. This is still a seriously good printer.

Not disagreeing with any of that, but I was talking about hyperconvergence
in the data center. Every vendor now wants to sell you a "hyperconverged"
cluster of compute, network, and storage. In other words, buy it all from
the same vendor because "it's hyperconverged" which is just codespeek for
"we get all ur moneys"

Well, it appears that Satan Claws brought me a Das Keyboard 4 Professional
... (I guess I haven't been naughty enough to get off the good list; must
work on that next year) ... enjoying it so far, it's just as loud as a Model
M but it's a different kind of tactile response. A bit more delicate. I
am finding that since the keys don't require as much force to actuate as a
buckling spring, I'm giving it a lighter touch and the keys don't bottom out
quite as much. These are the Cherry MX Blue switches.